Look at all the information!

“Aftermath of a crashed drive” by wonderferret

We’re drowning in data. That’s according to a new study from technology research firm IDC in which they attempted to quantify the amount of information being produced yearly. The estimate is that a staggering 161 billion gigabytes (161 exabytes) of digital data (webpages, instant messages, email, documents, etc.) is being generated each year. A previous University of California, Berkeley study done back in 2003 found about five exabytes was being produced.

To put it in understandable terms, you’d need to swing by the Apple Store and pickup more than 2 billion of the latest and biggest iPod model to store it all.

Interestingly, by 2010, researchers estimate 70% of content will be generated by individuals. And, for the first time in history, the amount of information created is out-pacing the amount of storage available to archive it. IDC estimates there was about 185 exabytes of storage available last year, worldwide. By 2010, they say that number will be more like 601 exabytes. However, the researchers say we’ll be generating something like 988 exabytes of information by that time.

With that much information being archived continually, a key area where further innovation is required is search and cataloging–after all, data isn’t of much use if you can’t find what you need, when you need it.

On the bright side, not all information we create is stored, nor does it need to be. Examples are most emails, phone calls and pretty much everything currently found on MySpace.